Youth
Falls Church native Amaker's selection of W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax, Virginia, was controversial. Amaker's mother was a Fairfax County teacher, which at the time gave her the freedom to choose where her son went to high school. She felt Amaker would be able to play on the varsity team at Woodson as a freshman, because coach Red Jenkins had been impressed with Amaker's youth summer league game performances since the time Amaker was ten years old. Amaker's dominance at Woodson has been cited as the reason why teachers do not have the same freedom to choose that they formerly did. Amaker did earn the starting job by December of his freshman year.
His mother, a high school English teacher, was his first coach. His mother attended his practices and graded papers in the coaches' office. His coach, Jenkins, referred to him as "T-bird".
Amaker, who grew up in Fairfax, was the first freshman to make varsity in W.T. Woodson history. He played on the 1983 McDonald's All-American Team and was also named to the Parade All-American team. Krzyzewski had been in town to evaluate Johnny Dawkins and got a chance to see Amaker play. Amaker had wanted to play for the Maryland Terrapins because his sister Tami went there and he idolized Maryland star guard John Lucas. He was recruited to Duke by assistant coach Chuck Swenson, who would later serve as an Amaker assistant.
Read more about this topic: Tommy Amaker
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“Oh high is the price of parenthood,
And daughters may cost you double.
You dare not forget, as you thought you could,
That youth is a plague and a trouble.”
—Phyllis McGinley (20th century)
“And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.””
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)